


(not) holding me down

by darlingria



Category: Pieces Of String - Gowland
Genre: "new au"?, (Past) Homophobia, (reflection on) unhealthy family dynamics, M/M, SO post-canon, also kind of Jane Thompson, character death?? kind of??? janes dead, jane died before ed & harry reunited, jane is a demon and killing her off was the best choice i ever made, kind of, namely emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 06:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15924917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingria/pseuds/darlingria
Summary: ed visits his mother's grave twice, and then he doesn't.





	(not) holding me down

**Author's Note:**

> is it completely insane to have 5 separate, named post-canon timelines for a musical literally 2 people have seen? probably. but fuck u i love my boys  
> anyway have a short lil thing about ed,

It’s a few weeks before he can bring himself to visit her again, after the funeral. He has to bring Harry with him, too, because — as ridiculous, irrational,  _ awful _ as it is — he didn’t think he could face her alone. Gem would laugh if she knew, and rightly. Isn’t it pathetic, not to be able to stare down a slab of rock on his own? She’s  _ dead _ .   
  
Still, he feels her eyes on him as he clears away the small pile of withering flowers from her funeral, appraising him, aching with loudly felt disappointment as he returns to Harry’s side. (All three of them knowing she’ll never have this many flowers again, that her grave will be as cold and empty as her life was, and none of them willing to admit it) He clears the feeling with a shake of his head and lays down fresh flowers, a muted gladiolus wreath propped up against her tombstone. Leans his shoulder discreetly against Harry’s, because his mother wouldn’t approve of their friendship but he can’t be here alone, and falls still.    
  
Harry breaks the silence.    
  
“She would be proud of you,” he says, hopeful and unsure. Ed scoffs. “She would be! Anyone would!”    
  
Ed feels, suddenly, that he’d rather be anywhere else in the world. No, that’s not right. He’d rather be home, with Harry who’s always had absolute faith in him and Gemma who needs him. He backs away from her, and ignores her last scraping disappointments.    
  
—    
  
He stares down her grave, and it stares right back.  _ It’s been too long _ , it says.  _ What could possibly have kept you _ ?    
  
He clears away his long-dead wreath (of course nobody else has thought of her since) and thinks, work (he’s been so busy) and Gemma (she wouldn’t survive on her own). He thinks he’s making excuses. It’s Harry, a little bit — she wouldn’t approve, her body rolls in her grave under his feet even as he thinks Harry’s name — but mostly he can’t stand to be here, everything she didn’t want him to be, handsome and successful and  _ gay _ . Always after her approval, hating every last moment. The shadow of her Ed falls over him, and he almost turns to leave. Christ, he’s running from a dead woman. Running from a slab of stone.    
  
Instead, he lays a small bouquet of hydrangeas at the foot of the grave and says, “we’re engaged. Harry and I.” Feels a little ridiculous, talking to a grave, imagines Harry spending hours happily chatting to the air. But he’s alone. At least nobody else is here to see him. “We’re going to be  _ happy _ .”    
  
The wind digs hooks into his skin as he backs away, anchors to the ground and pleads with him not to go, to stay, to change. He ignores it, unlocks his phone, and calls Harry as he leaves.    
  
—   
  
He doesn’t return.


End file.
